One of the pleasures of waking up before sun-rise, esp. in the mountain-forests of Himalayas, are the delightful sounds of birds wafting through the crisp, pre-dawn air. Depending on which place you are in, you can hear calls ranging from the distinctive flute-like toot….tootoot….toot of the Collared Owlet, the mournful drawn-out whistle of the Hill Partridge, the harsh and throaty kyearh of the Jungle Crow, the mellifluous descending multi-note resonant song of the Spotted Laughingthrush, the unmistakeable cuck-oo…cuck-oo call of the Eurasian Cuckoo and more.

It is a pointless exercise for me to try and take on the task of describing these sounds – so pure and so natural and beyond description. The only way one can really feel them is to experience the pleasure of hearing them first-hand.

Of all of these pre-dawn sounds that one comes across, the one that is most prominent and probably the most intriguing (for the uninitiated atlteast) is that of the Blue Whistling Thrush – its’ rambling-melodic whistling song usually starts about 25-40 minutes before actual sunrise.

Here is a sample of its song (courtesy Peter Boesman via xeno-canto.org) – maybe you can take a stab at trying to describe this sound.